WhatsApp is using a new strategy to convince its users not to leave it. This weekend, the more than two billion email clients saw an unprecedented notification appear. For the first time, WhatsApp has used “statuses” to communicate with its customers. The service tries by all means to convince them not to abandon it for competitors such as Signal, Telegram, Threema or Wire.
The “status” is this tab, on WhatsApp, which allows you to publish ephemeral messages, whether text, images or short videos. Launched in February 2017 with the intention of competing with Snapchat, these “statuses” were used this weekend for the first time by WhatsApp itself, which posted four small thumbnails. “This is where we will keep you informed of new features and updates. The only thing that doesn’t change is our commitment to your privacy. WhatsApp cannot read or listen to your personal conversations. They are encrypted from end to end, ”writes the company in particular, with a link to its site WhatsApp.com/privacy.
Read also: WhatsApp will share more data with Facebook… except in Switzerland
Misunderstanding
This extraordinary communication comes at a key moment for WhatsApp. In early January, the company caused misunderstanding and fear among many users by posting an unclear message. The Facebook subsidiary announced that it would share information with its parent company from February 8. Faced with the outcry and the start of migration of some customers to competing messengers, WhatsApp then decided to postpone this deadline to May 15.
With its “status”, messaging today insists on the fact that it never has access to the messages of its users. But in reality, this point, while it may have been the subject of doubts on the part of some customers, has never been the heart of the problem. Because since it has encrypted all communications – like Threema and Signal – for a long time and by default, WhatsApp has never been able to read messages and will never be able to do so. In this area, WhatsApp is even more advanced than Telegram, which does not encrypt all exchanges by default.
Two messages
On the other hand, it is the exchange with Facebook of certain data (identifier, phone number, battery level, etc.), added to the messy communication of WhatsApp, which is always a problem. Thus, the Swiss users received two different messages, without the company being able to explain it. In recent days, WhatsApp had issued a long press release in an attempt to explain the upcoming changes, before publishing these “statutes”. By May 15, other operations should take place.
If WhatsApp is doing the same, it is to convince as many users as possible not to switch to the competition. How many have taken the step? Impossible to say. Last week, when publishing its quarterly results, Facebook gave no indication. Even though Signal or Telegram claim to register the arrival of tens of millions of customers, there is no indication that they are completely stopping using WhatsApp. One thing is certain, these competitors are active.
Read also: WhatsApp shifts its measures, but will emerge unscathed from the scandal it created
Threema is growing
Last week, Telegram launched a new feature on iOS (iPhone) to import, one by one, all of its old chats from WhatsApp. For its part, Signal has recently offered entertainment functions directly inspired by … WhatsApp. The app supported by a foundation allows you to create personalized wallpapers for chats, animated stickers and display more information on your profile. Finally, the Swiss Threema application now allows you to create groups of up to 256 people and to post comments in any type of media, such as images, locations or voice messages. The race to grab WhatsApp customers is expected to continue over the next few weeks.
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